Russian Arctic - a different world

Adventure International, Adventure NZ
In any other country the old guy would be eligible for some sort of social help. He lives in a wooden shack km away from the nearest other wooden shack, drinks water from a well and eats fish he catches from the sea behind his ramshackle house, but the fact that the Arctic Circle passes through his back yard means that his garden has become a bit of a tourist attraction.
Planks etched with the names of distant cities are roughly tacked to a totem pole pointing across the White Sea.. but everywhere in the world is a long way from this place. Robb, one of the two tour guides, is having a seaweed bath on the shore and the other, Frank, is leading the group around pointing out bits of wartime flotsam that the old guy has collected. I only arrived in Russia a couple of days ago, but I already know that many things here are not what they are back home.
We ring the mournful bell that in yesteryear tolled solemnly out through the fog guiding the blinded fishermen home and then head to a village hall where we are treated to a customary welcoming ceremony. A group of traditionally dressed women singing haunting songs about their fisher husbands lost at sea - it feels more than just a welcome, it has the effect of an initiation, and with a tear in my eye I dance and hold the hands of a woman who lives in a different world to the one I know.
I booked this trip on the strength of an article about the same company’s tour of Croatia and the photos on its website, but I have to say, as good as those photos are, they just don’t do this place justice. I guess people brought up in the temperate zone just can’t imagine what the Arctic really looks like, or comprehend the mind-altering remoteness of it. It’s hardly ever in the news so I guess the pre-conceived idea of vast frozen white wastelands trodden only by the paws of polar bears remains unchallenged.
We drive for hours, although the fact that we’re driving off-road, stopping every now and again to negotiate our way around broken bridges, our modified route actually taking us in the sea, makes the distance seem longer. But just when I think that we must be coming to the end of the world, we come to a perfect little village of wooden houses clustered around an estuary, the older buildings beginning to sag back into the permafrosted earth.
We pull up at one of the last houses and another old guy comes out to greet us with a big smile. This is his home, he’s set the table for us, stacked logs in both the fires and has warmed up the banya. It doesn’t feel like we’re at a hotel, it feels like Robb and Frank are introducing us to their friends.
Robb is British and Frank is Dutch, but both are long-time expats in Russia and this works really well. They both love Russian culture, know a lot about it, yet they have a European mentality so the tour works out as very balanced. I’ve been on tours in the past with very knowledgeable local guides who at the same time had absolutely no idea about what Europeans wanted from a holiday and that spoilt the experience for me a lot.
It’s Robb who leads us into the steaming banya, a soaking wet sauna, where the water dashed against the stove creates a stinging steam. It says 110 degrees on the wall, but I can’t believe Robb when he says it really is. But then the best bit - when you can’t take the heat any more you just run out of the door and take a few steps to dive straight into the White Sea.
We repeated the process three or so times and it was an amazing experience. If dancing with the local womenfolk was an emotional initiation to Arctic Russia, then the banya and the vodka we had after it was a physical one.
Wonderful too was sitting on the rocking chair upstairs in front of the massive window looking out over the sea. The Arctic Circle is the point where on June 21, the longest day of the year, the sun doesn’t dip below the horizon. It was just a couple of days shy of the solstice but the Kola Peninsula really is the land of the midnight sun and just like in the day, I couldn’t sleep at all. It seemed somehow unnatural. 
It’s been a long time since I owned a 4WD and I actually didn’t feel like driving all the way to the Arctic before joining the tour anyway, but the company owns an ex-Soviet army Gaz 66 kitted out as an expedition truck with aircraft seats in the back, and although I got to sit in chauffeured comfort all the time I couldn’t help wondering if I was missing something.
It only took me a few hours to fly to Tampere in Finland and a few more on the train to Rovaniemi, but the hardy off-roaders had driven for days to get here in their cherished Land Rovers, so not only were they enjoying the culture and the off-roading, they also knew just exactly how far away this place really was.
And with the massive smiles everyone constantly had it was obvious that the tour is absolutely ideal for those into off-roading. This is serious stuff. From the coast we drove for two full days off-road through the endless forest, stopping only to cook shashliki over an open fire and to camp. It truly was an expedition and endless thick bush and forests without any landmarks to mark the distance and the perpetual sun making it impossible to tell the time, it was truly disorientating.
Because European countries are such small and relatively crowded places (compared to Russia), at every turn I expected that we’d come across a farm or a road, or something to show that we weren’t the first people ever to come here, but there was never anything more than just the dirt road and odd rickety old bridge with worryingly rotten timbers.
Maybe it was something to do with the lack of sleep or some lingering effect of the local vodka but for a while I was sure that Frank was lost and was just driving us around in hopeless circles. They teach survival skills for travelling in the desert, but the same precautions must apply here; if you were on your own and got stuck, had an accident, or just something stupid happened like running out of fuel, in these immense forests it could easily mean death.
You’d simply never get to go here without a competent guide with a seriously equipped expedition vehicle. Fortunately Frank knew exactly where he was going.
When we pulled into a tiny wooden shack village and made our beds on reindeer skins in a big hut set in the earth I can honestly say that I have never in my life been anywhere that felt so unbelievably remote. It seemed almost inconceivable that anyone could live here.
I asked Robb to show me where we were on the map and he confidently pointed to a spot in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t directions you needed to find this place, only GPS co-ordinates would do.
Someone said the banya was ready and I couldn’t say no. There was no White sea to dive into though, just the bone-chillingly cold water in a little river, cold because it was full of snow-melt from the mountains we were going to get to in a couple of days. At four in the morning, in the full light of day I lay naked and steaming on a little jetty scooping up handfuls of freezing water to sip. It wasn’t something I could capture in a photo, but again, it was just magic and something I’ll never forget.

 

When we eventually made it back to a tar seal road we did so with a feeling of insult, with a bad taste in the mouth. Russians are not exactly renowned for their ecological consideration and the mineral processing plant looked abhorrent after coming so suddenly after days of pristine wilderness. We weren’t long in the concrete town of Kirovsk and then thankfully we were heading off into the pristine mountains.
The Kibiny are old mountains, their black rocks towering over the narrow valley. It was late but Frank wanted to go and check the level of snow for the next day, but everyone in their 4WDs volunteered to go with him. We dropped our bags off at the spa hotel and I cancelled a massage I’d booked  - which actually wasn’t such a bad thing.
I’d had the mental image of a young blonde with delicate hands in a tight white uniform easing the travel fatigue out of my muscles. Well, her uniform was tight all right, but around her huge body so would have been a tent. She looked like the sort of woman they’d use to get her hands on you to extract a confession.
For months I’d been enjoying the positively balmy summer weather, taking the kids and dogs for walks in the lush woods behind the house, watching the corn grow in the fields, rubbing sun cream on noses on the beach, so I was totally unprepared to see the road blocked with deep snow that stretched all the way up both sides of the valley.
It was a totally alien scene and I felt as if I’d just woken up from a coma and realised that I’d missed a few months of my life. Our track was covered under a metre of snow so forward progress was impossible and as Frank fiddled with the gears I thought he was selecting reverse. Nope. He was locking the transmission so that could have more traction, and then at a terrifying angle we forced our way off the road into the river.
I was almost thrown out of my seat and was convinced that we must have severely damaged the vehicle, but Frank was laughing: this was exactly the kind of use the Soviets designed the truck for. The Land Rovers couldn’t follow in the Gaz’s massive tyre tracks though, but again, no problem, Robb was out tying the first three cars together and then still chuckling Frank calmly dragged them all into the river. `
The water had cut a channel through the snow but the banks were at least a couple of metres tall. I looked out the back and saw the 4WDs behind with the fast flowing water lapping over the bonnets. I guess that this is why it says on the website that snorkels are recommended. About 20 minutes further on though and our way seemed totally impassable.
An avalanche had dumped snow all the way across the river, which had cut a tunnel underneath. It seemed like we were going to have to reverse a few km, but no. It seems Robb and Frank don’t consider going back an option. Spades and ropes were brought out and a technique devised which included ramming the snow with the truck and then slicing through it with a loop of winch wire as the truck reversed.
Robb had hurt his back on his travels somewhere, but while he couldn’t dig he made a fire to boil the kettle and then started roasting some more shahkiks for us. To the smell of roasting pork and peppers we dug, winched the cars along, dug some more and then finally broke through.
And there it was, the perfect moment. The one scene that defined the whole trip. The image to put on the folder of all the other photos.
It was 3am on the Summer Solstice. In just a few hours the sun, which for us was high in the sky, would be rising between the Heel stones of Stonehenge, but here we were in Arctic Russia throwing snowballs at each other. No other words to describe it, just absolute magic! You’ll just have to go there yourself!
If you like the sound of this expedition please have a look at the World 4x4 Adventures website.
www.world4x4.co.uk
And bear in mind that included in the tour price the company arranges all of your Russian paperwork for you, as well as all of your food and accommodation.

 

 

 

 

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